Brit Hume: Obama 'made a real race of it'

11/6/12 7:54 PM EST

Fox News’s Brit Hume said tonight that in spite of the economy, "Obamacare" and difficulties abroad, President Barack Obama has “made a real race of it” thanks to his team and the image many voters have of him as a “hero and historic figure.”

With all those issues on the table this cycle, "one might have thought that the fundamental to this election would have given any reasonable challenger a leg up," Hume said.

“I will say this — given the conditions in the country, given the fact that we do not have a robust recovery four years after Barack Obama was inaugurated, or elected, and given the fact that, you know, we have had difficulties on the world scene most recently with the problems in Libya, given the fact that "Obamacare," the president's proudest achievement in his own way of looking at things, remains unpopular, one might have thought that the fundamental to this election would have given any reasonable challenger a leg up,” Hume said.

But that discounts two major factors, Hume said: Obama’s ground game and his position in the minds of many Americans.

“The feeling that people have about Barack Obama that he is a hero and a historic figure and, I think that people — we're finding that people really don't want to let go of that, a great many people,” Hume said. “We're also finding that the Obama team, anticipating certainly in the wake of 2010 but even before that, perhaps, that this was going to be a very difficult election, have built a real machine to try to get out their vote and try to make this a close race.”

Hume added that “based on all that we knew coming into tonight, I’m not surprised it's close.”

“If you looked back a couple years, you might have looked ahead and thought it would be easier election for the challenger than it so far has proved to be,” he said. “It doesn't mean, by the way, that the president is going to win. It just means that he’s made a real race of it.”